Lubomir (Lubos) Kavalek has been an International Chess Grandmaster (GM) since 1965, and several times U.S. and Czechoslovakian champion. He was rated among the world’s Top Ten chess players, winning more than thirty important international and national tournaments and matches. A leading player on the U.S. team, he collected a record of one gold and five bronze olympic medals. He was inducted to the Chess Hall of Fame in 2001.

Kavalek played entertaining chess, winning several brilliancy prizes. His game against Eduard Gufeld from the 1962 Student Olympiad shared sixth place in Andrew Soltis’s book "The 100 Best Chess Games of the 20th Century, Ranked."

In 1972, Kavalek was Bobby Fischer’s second in his world championship match against Boris Spassky in Reykjavik. He coached other world-class players such as Nigel Short, Robert Hubner and Yasser Seirawan, and was acting captain and chief analyst for the world team against the USSR team in London 1984.

Kavalek organized one of the most important tournaments in chess history, the Tournament of Stars in Montreal in 1979, as well as the prestigious 1988-89 World Cup for the Grandmasters Association. His book "World Cup Chess" was published by Bloomsbury in London in 1990.

As a journalist and commentator Kavalek has covered all the most important chess events in the last 45 years, writing for several U.S. and foreign magazines. He was inducted to the Gallery of Distinguished Chess Journalists in 2006. He wrote about chess for the Washington Post for 24 years (1986-2010) in his award-winning column. He now writes for the Huffington Post.

Books

"The Najdorf Variation of the Sicilian Defense," with Yefim Geller, Svetozar Gligoric and Boris Spassky, published by RHM Press in 1976

The world chess champion Magnus Carlsen was in free fall, losing game after game at the beginning of the Norway Chess 2015 in Stavanger, one of the three tournaments of the newly founded Grand Chess Tour.

Failures of famous players attract as much attention as their successes. Misfortune was...

The United States chess team may embark on a journey reminiscent of the golden past. Three extraordinary grandmasters -- Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura and Wesley So -- are rated in the World's Top Ten. They are young, hungry and very good. And they will be eligible to play in next...

The world chess champion Magnus Carlsen, 24, scored another amazing victory with 7 points in 9 games at the Gashimov Memorial tournament in Shamkir, Azerbaijan. The Norwegian grandmaster finished a full point ahead of the former world champion Vishy Anand. The 45-year-old Indian...

The 2015 U.S. Chess Championships in Saint Louis, Missouri, ended last Sunday as expected: the top-rated grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura won his 4th U.S. title. On the women's side, Irina Krush defended the title, her seventh. But it was not that simple.

Most people who don't play chess believe that the checkmate ends the game. They may not know they can also lose by overstepping the time limit or by resigning - something unheard of in other sports such as football, basketball or hockey.

The Zurich Chess Challenge was a festive six-grandmaster extravaganza played this month in the posh Savoy hotel. The American grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura benefitted from the last-minute change in the rules and blitzed his way to win the title.

The year 2015 is very young and the world chess champion Magnus Carlsen has already won two strong tournaments -- in Wijk aan Zee in January and in the German resort Baden-Baden this week. But first, let's go briefly to Gibraltar, where the American grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura was tearing the...

In 1975, the organizers of the traditional chess tournament in the Dutch coastal town of Wijk aan Zee inaugurated a prize for the most spectacular game. They expected breathtaking encounters, griping contests, and some glamour and charm.

Throughout the four decades many grandmasters were rewarded for their thrilling play,...

The world chess champion Magnus Carlsen turned 24 last Sunday and had many reasons to celebrate: it was the most fruitful year of his young chess career. For nearly four years he has dominated the FIDE rating list as the world's top-rated player. He won two additional world titles in...

The world champion Magnus Carlsen is making chess popular around the globe and his title defense against Vishy Anand begins on November 8 in Sochi, Russia. Millions of chess fans are looking forward to the coverage of the World Chess Championship match on the Internet and in the newspapers. Alas,...

The Sinquefield Cup in Saint Louis was promised to be extraordinary this year: the highest-rated chess tournament ever with many of the world's best players on hand. To the delight of Rex Sinquefield, the main sponsor, it got even better.

A few moments earlier, she met Vladimir Simagin pacing back and forth in the lobby of the Polish hotel in Polanica Zdroj, repeating:"Stupid people, stupid people, stupid people...." The Moscow grandmaster explained to her...

On the eve of the Chess Olympiad in Tromsø, Norway, scheduled for the first two weeks in August, a few queen sacrifices from the past olympiads lead us to an intriguing question: when might have the queen been sacrificed for the first time?

On July 13 at the packed Maracanã stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Lionel Messi was handed the Golden Ball Trophy. It was an award going to the best soccer player of the 2014 FIFA World Cup. But instead of celebrating the joyful moment,...